LEWISTON — A 12-year-old girl will get her books. A 4-year-old boy, his cars and trucks. An 8-year-old, the clothes he needed.

Donors have claimed all 150 tags that remained on the Lewiston-Auburn Salvation Army’s main Angel Tree. And then some.

“I’ve even had people call and say ‘I didn’t have a tag. What do you need?'” said Lt. Jason Brake, who heads the Lewiston-Auburn Salvation Army with his wife. “And we say, ‘Well, we’re missing some baby toys.’ ‘OK, I’ll bring those down.’ It’s been great.”

On Saturday, the Sun Journal published a story about the Salvation Army’s plight. The charity had agreed to help 1,200 children from 456 families this Christmas. All the children were 12 or younger, poor and from the Lewiston-Auburn area.

But 150 tags still hung on the Salvation Army’s Angel Tree at the Auburn Mall, representing 150 children who might not have presents this Christmas without a stranger’s help. A week and a half before Christmas, that help hadn’t yet come, and the Salvation Army was bumping up against its deadline to get gifts to families.

By Sunday, only a day after the story appeared, donors had claimed every tag on the tree.

“It’s actually the first time in the four years that we’ve been here that we have no tags left. That just made a huge difference for our toy drive,” Brake said.

With no tags left to claim, donors began calling to offer other assistance. It’s an outpouring Brake is thankful for.

“The community is just supporting us so tremendously,” he said. “All my kettlers that are out and about, people are saying ‘Thank you, Merry Christmas, God bless you for what you’re doing.’ We’ve just had such positive feedback from the community.”

No child was at risk of going without. The Salvation Army receives some help from the Marine’s Toys for Tots program, and it planned to go out and buy toys if it had to. But the Salvation Army would have been forced to use its kettle drive money to buy those toys, and it needs those funds to run Lewiston-Auburn programs for the next year.

The rush of donations means it won’t have to dip into its savings, and children will still get their wishes fulfilled.

The Salvation Army is organizing Christmas gift bags now and plans to distribute them to families this week.

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